https://youtu.be/ZjyqmdTRpf0
Musing
by Jeff Poole
Jeff Poole is an author, an actor, a writer, and a traveler. He’s also a cancer survivor. Once you’ve dealt with that, all other accomplishments, no matter how passionately you pursue them, become 2nd on the list of things done! He’s been acting since March 2014, including some voice acting work on audible. He’s a published writer of short stories in various genres, and he’s a member of the Horror Writers Association. (HWA) He’s appeared in full length features, television series, commercials, and many short films. He’s received best actor awards in several film festivals, and been a main character in some award winning short films. He’s made three training videos for the Department of Energy (DOE) over the last year, half of it with extensive use of a teleprompter, and the rest with a standard script. He recently wrote, produced and acted in a short horror comedy, “Hello,” which is making the festival rounds, and has been selected as a finalist for best short in many of them. He’s traveled extensively in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and Australasia, and he likes to think it has had an affect on his writing, and acting.
I lost my muse between Santa Fe and Las Cruces.
She got out at an old gas station in Truth or Consequences. We were having what I’d thought was a minor argument. I parked my vehicle next to the pumps, and barely had time to turn off the ignition. Suzette pushed the door open and threw her feet to the ground.
“I’m outta here! I’m gonna find someone who wants to hold an idea in his head long enough for it to take seed!”
She slammed the door and headed off towards the bar next to the station.
I yelled out the open window after her, “It’s a little early to start drinking, even when that’s all you do!”
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She kept walking with her back to me, flipping me the bird over her shoulder. I eased back into the driver’s seat and tried to remember why I’d pulled in here to begin with.
“Oh yeah,” Looking at the gas gauge, “low on fuel.”
Suzette was tired of getting no response from her musing. I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t been able to focus for weeks. My thoughts were worthless; “Bees landing on artificial flowers” was about the best analogy I could come up with, which summed up the lameness and desperation of my situation perfectly. I was afflicted with something serious, and I hoped temporary. Nothing Suzette offered seemed to take root in my head. It was weird because we’d been a productive pair for two years running. Suzette had even told me her real name: Margaret. She went by the moniker Suzette because she thought it sounded more Muse-like.
As I watched her walk away, I turned on the radio. A band I referred to as Nickel-blow was playing the only song in their repertoire I liked; something about a photograph. One of the lamest bands in human history, and I liked one of their lame songs. Another customer gassing up was watching me through my windshield, probably wondering why I was just sitting here.
“Like I care buddy.”
He gave me a wry smile and looked away.
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Actually, I did care. I wanted to get going. Suzette and I had believed hitting the asphalt for a while would shake something loose. A full blown road trip out of the frosty north, to the sunny environs of Las Cruces or maybe to the so-called “Boot Heel” of New Mexico.
I got out of the car, put the nozzle in the tank, and leaned against the car. It was a beautiful autumn day, what I liked to call “summer-lite.” The early morning breeze was warm, and still had the scent of flowers. Unlike Santa Fe where it was
jacket weather and you could already smell the wood smoke from the fireplaces. I always went south for a week every October to get out of Santa Fe and away from the fall weather; I’d just left a few weeks earlier. It was an easy drive down I-25. Amazing what a difference two hundred miles and a few thousand feet in altitude made. My way of extending the warm weather months, but it wasn’t moving me the way it had in the past.
What the hell was I doing in Truth or Consequences? Anyone who’d lived in New Mexico more than a week called it T or C. It had maybe six or seven thousand people tops, counting the huge population of retirees. Hadn’t a serial killer been caught here? Yeah, Ray something or other. He used to take hookers to his trailer, torture and kill them, then dump them in the local reservoir. Got away with it until one of his reluctant guests got loose, and wearing nothing but her birthday suit ran to one of his neighbors, then it was bye, bye Ray. Where the hell did you find hookers in a town the size of T or C? What place did
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you leave to turn tricks in Truth or Consequences for Christ sake? A town named after a freakin’ game show?
Suzette startled me out of my mini-trance.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Ah! You’re back.”
She was standing near the rear of the car with her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong with you Greg? You’re so goddamn scattered. Your mind’s like a sieve, bleeding all over the place. Nothing I do moves you anymore. You used to be light and funny. You wrote light and funny. Now you’re semi-morose and graveyard funny, when you even bother to write.”
“Like going from milk chocolate to dark chocolate?”
Suzette rolled her eyes, “Or not funny at all.”
I went in to pay the attendant, and maybe grab something to eat. I meandered around the aisles looking for something that struck my fancy. A lot of Americans have this habit, and I think it’s a serious character flaw, and why so many people in this country are fat.
I found a bag of cashews, and headed to the checkout.
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Walking to the front of the store, I could see the guy working the cash register watching Suzette through the front window. He didn’t notice me at first then visibly shook himself out of a wistful trance.
“Damn buddy that is one nice lookin’ woman.” He said through tobacco stained teeth.
“Yeah.”
A muse is supposed to be attractive, and Suzette was definitely easy on the eyes, a bit tall, which was nice because so was I. We both had light blonde hair, and green eyes, but she had an upside down heart shaped butt, whereas I had fused North American hips
“She looks kinda pissed off.”
“Yep.”
“Sorry, I just felt like commenting on it.”
I glanced at his name tag, it read, “Ray.”
“No worries Ray, I totally get it, believe me.”
Ray gave me change, and I went back to my car.
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Suzette had disappeared. I thought about spending five minutes to ‘sight see’ the entire town, then decided to see if Suzette had gone to the bar next door. I squinted against the morning sun to read the sign in front as I approached the single story adobe colored building. “The Alco-Hole.” Someone had sprayed light green paint over the Alco part, so from a distance it was simply “The Hole,” but you could see through the color when you were as close as I was. There was a lone blue Malibu parked out front. Ok, not too many customers at ten in the morning, a good sign. I entered the bar and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place smelled like cigarettes, which is weird because smoking is illegal at indoor establishments in New Mexico. I spotted Suzette near the bar with two guys, one tall and thick, the other short and wiry and wearing a baseball cap. Even at this hour they both appeared to have had a few too many. Suzette had a cigarette in one hand and a rum and coke in the other. I knew it was a rum and coke because that’s all she drank. I mean that’s all she drank. No water, no soft drinks, no fruit juice, just rum and cokes. There’s a reason so many writers drink a lot; all Muses live on some form of alcohol. I wasn’t an alky, but everyone thought I was because I was constantly at the liquor store buying various brands of rum.
As I walked up to their little group I heard one of the guys ask, “So where you from Peggy?”
I guess Peggy worked fine in “The Hole.”
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“From far away boys and I’m just here for a drink, so give me a little space would ya?”
She passed the cigarette to one of the men. “Thanks.”
I tried to “sidle” up next to her, but it was more of an awkward squeeze between her and her new found would be paramours.
The bartender was the only other person in the place besides us, an old guy with giant white eyebrows who looked like he could’ve played football in the fifties. He leaned forward and said,
“Come on, tell us one more, and your next drinks on the house.”
“How’s it going Margaret?” I inquired.
“I thought you said your name was Peggy?” said the shorter man.
‘Peggy’ ignored him, “I’m almost done Greg, give me a minute and you can head out.”
She took a big drink of her cocktail, “Ok, A dude spots a nice looking girl in a bar and goes up to start small talk. Seeing that she doesn’t mind, he keeps chatting her up for a
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while longer, then asks for her name. She says, ‘Carmen.’ ‘That’s a nice name, which one of your parents named you?’ he asks, ‘Neither, I did.’ So he asks, ‘Why did you name yourself Carmen?”
Looking directly into his eyes she says, “Because I like cars and men,” she pauses and then asks the man, “So what’s your name?’ and without missing a beat the guy replies, ‘Beersex.’
Her mesmerized audience laughed hysterically.
Between chortles Suzette said, “Greg here writes sometimes.”
Everyone looked at me.
She took another drink, “Greg used to write funny science fiction. I like funny Science Fiction.”
“Yeah Greg,” said the tall, burly guy. “Funny is good.”
“Can be.” I said hoping that would end this line of conversation.
“Why’d you stop?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
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“What name you write under?”
“Greg Caldwell.”
“Oh yeah! I read one of your books, the one about the alien bartenders, I thought it sucked. No offense.”
The guy with the baseball cap chimed in, “Yeah, no wonder you stopped, it wasn’t funny. No offense.”
“Thanks and thank you, Peggy?” I said with raised eyebrows.
“Think nothing of it darling.”
“Um, I really think we should hit the road dear.”
“Not just yet,” Suzette said, “I want you to meet my cousin.”
“Who?”
I saw movement behind Suzette. A very pretty, dark haired woman seemed to materialize out of the shadows, and snaked her hand around Suzette to shake mine.
She grinned up at me. “Hi.”
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She was about a half foot shorter than Suzette’s five-ten. Even in the dim light of the bar I could see her eyes had that look referred to as ‘smoky.’
No one present said a word for the half minute that I stood in front of Suzette and her “cousin,” looking from one to the other.
Finally I managed to blurt out, “Your cousin?”
“Hi!” Said the tall burly guy, taking the hand of the new arrival, “I’m Ray.”
I stopped myself from asking, “How many Rays live in T or C?”
The other man chimed in, “Hi! I’m Peter.”
The dark haired woman studied the two men for a moment as she shook Ray’s hand, before shifting her gaze back to me.
“Suzette said she thought we should meet. She thinks you’ve changed and might need a new kind of friend.”
“When the hell did she say this?”
“Pretty recently, she said she might have to re-evaluate her status.”
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“What the fuck do you mean, re-evaluate her status?”
She shrugged her shoulders before replying, “I mean, move on.”
I definitely didn’t like the way things were going, but all I could think of to say was, “I really like Suzette.”
“She really likes you too Greg, but she can’t be satisfied if she can’t do her job.”
“When did you get to T or C?”
The woman’s lips moved down at the corners in a gesture that seemed to say, “Does it matter?”
Ray and Peter were observing our conversation with puzzled looks. Ray started to say something, but Peggy silenced him with a light touch to his shoulder.
“Now, now Ray, let them get to know each other.”
Suzette’s ‘cousin’ took my hand and whispered, “We should be going Greg.”
I looked over at Suzette, “What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. Ray here is an aspiring cartoonist.”
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“So this is it? Two years together and I get dumped in ‘The Hole’?”
“Greg, I’ll drop in from time to time for old times’ sake, but you need someone with a darker sense of humor. And that ain’t me. I’m all about the light stuff.”
“This is pretty sudden. I’m kinda staggered here.”
My new acquaintance put her arm through mine, gently moving me towards the door.
“I’ll grow on you Greg. I think you’ll find we have a lot in common, let’s go.”
We walked out of the bar and headed towards the gas station and my car. I was in a mild state of shock, so we walked in silence. When I looked down at her face I realized the darkness of the bar had obscured how truly pretty she was; so darkly beautiful most men would be afraid to even approach her. Except maybe those with a death wish. I made my way to the opposite side of my car and we stared at each other over the roof. She hadn’t uttered a word since we’d exited the bar.
I thought to myself, “This girl is trouble.”
But I was leaving with her regardless. With an effort I looked away and opened my car door.
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“Where do you think we should go?” I asked as I slid behind the wheel.
She opened the door and bent down to look at me through the opening, “Where do you want to go?”
I thought for a moment, “Back to Santa Fe.”
“Great.” She jumped in the passenger seat.
“What the hell’s your name lady?”
“You can call me Monique. Monique sounds so Muse-like, don’t you think?”
“Definitely has a dark feel to it.”
“Back to Santa Fe Greg. Chilly, shadowy, mysterious Santa Fe. We can tell each other stories in the dark.”
“What do you drink?”
Monique smiled, not a full smile, a light, teasing one.
“Martinis. And I like them dirty.”
I put the car in drive and went north. I started writing “Santa Fe Noir” as soon as I hit town.
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A few months later some guy named Ray Campbell from Truth or Consequences began making a splash with his underground comic, “NASCAR Drivers in Space.”
Sounds pretty lame to me, but what the hell do I know?
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